Government/Politics: JASON MIYARES

Ask Miyares about his mother, and he will have a passionate response. She immigrated from Cuba in the 1960s to evade its Communist government. 

“She is just one example of the American miracle, and that worldview of the uniqueness of this country is directly tied from my mother’s immigrant experience,” Miyares says. 

The first Cuban American attorney general in Virginia, Miyares previously served as a Republican delegate representing part of Virginia Beach, since 2016. In 2021, he was elected in a GOP wave that also brought in Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, as well as returning the House of Delegates to Republican control.

An anti-abortion conservative, Miyares withdrew a brief in support of abortion that his predecessor, Democrat Mark Herring, had submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court. Miyares also cleared house in the AG’s office, firing attorneys who were working on civil rights and housing conditions.

WHAT I’VE LEARNED: I’m never the smartest person in any room, but I’m smart enough to recognize good ideas. 

SOMETHING I’D NEVER DO AGAIN: Wait too long to tell my then-girlfriend (now wife) that I was madly in love with her